


troubling a star

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel & Vessel Interactions, Angst, Character Death, Dean Bears The Mark of Cain, Gen, I had a sad after writing this, M/M, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:56:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3741667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Very soon I will be dead, Jimmy, and then I will be of no use to anyone. And neither will this body." Or: one way the Claire Novak story arc could end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	troubling a star

_"Look at what's happened to me. I can't believe it myself... suddenly I'm up on top of the world. It should have been somebody else..."_  
  
Claire never fails to stop bawling when he sings this one. Once the first few notes wash over her and his arms come around her, she always gives a toothless grin and coos loudly. Jimmy grins back and lifts his newborn daughter out of the baby carrier, sweeping her around the kitchen like one of those Disney princesses she'll be idolizing soon enough (two years from now, if he's got it right; Claire will solemnly declare at breakfast one day that "I'm a mermaid now" and then proceed to throw a tantrum when her parents tell her that she can't brush her hair with her fork like Ariel does).

He can remember "forward" like this, because this moment – two days after Claire had been born, and one week after they'd first moved into the little house in Normal, Illinois – isn't real. Because he's dead. Which is actually far more of a comfort than it sounds, even if Heaven is incredibly repetitive. He can't remember how many times he's sung this song by now, but for some reason he never gets tired of it. Never gets tired of singing to Claire.

The kitchen linoleum is cracked and feels dirty beneath his bare feet, but it's theirs. He and Amelia had been so proud to have a place of their own to raise their daughter. They would keep it for five more years before selling it and putting the money towards a mortgage on a home in Pontiac, closer to where Amelia's parents lived.

Claire suddenly gives a ferocious cry of delight in the middle of the dance, prompting him to stop just in front of the pot of gardenias Amelia had placed on the windowsill when they'd first moved in.  _For luck_ , she'd said as she dropped a kiss to her husband's forehead, rays of light catching the petals and casting a gentle shine on her hair, and Jimmy had imagined that all their days from now would be filled with nothing but bliss.

 _"...believe it or not, I'm walking on air, I never thought I would be so free..."_  
  
It was funny. Claire usually didn't care what Jimmy would sing to her – she was a baby, so nursery rhymes were the same as church hymns were the same as Eddie Money – but he knows that in  _this_  memory, at least, only the theme song to his prepubescent self's favorite television show would pacify her. It was a song he'd loved as well, at least right up until the part where he actually gained the power to smite bad guys and learned being a superhero was the single worst thing that could ever happen to you.

 _"...flying away on a wing and a prayer... who could it be? Believe it or not, it's just me... believe it or not, it's just – "_  
  
He freezes on the last word, blood turning to ice in his veins.

Castiel stares at him from the doorway.

He doesn't know how long it's been; time is a weak, impotent thing here in Heaven, so it could have been a minute or a hundred years since the angel that had hijacked his body invited himself in a second time, promptly went ahead and got them ripped to pieces by an archangel. And all without as much as a  _by your leave_.

His arms tighten around Claire (thankfully this was the part of the memory where she dropped off to sleep) and he rushes backward, his back fetching up against the counter. No weapons. There hadn't yet been time to get silverware for the house. He wonders, wildly, if he could shatter the potted plant –

Then he actually  _looks_  at Castiel, and his traitorous heart calms. The angel is looking at Claire, maintaining a safe distance, his expression one of complete anguish. He looks back up at Jimmy, holding him with his eyes that always seemed to burn a brighter blue when the angel was wearing his face, and makes a gesture of nonviolence with his hands.

There are so many things Jimmy could say right now. Of course, he never actually thought he'd see Castiel again, and so he can't think of anything. All he can get out is: "Why are you here? What do you want from me? I swear to God, if you – " He doesn't know where he's going with that sentence, only that it has something to do with all the things he'd wanted to say but didn't have words for.

Castiel takes advantage of that pause to speak. "I did not come here to disturb your peace, Jimmy Novak."

Jimmy stares. There's definitely something wrong with Castiel – something unfamiliar and  _off_ , about his Grace – but he can't be bothered to really care. His arms relax around Claire by a fraction but he doesn't move forward.

"I won't hurt you." Castiel sounds like he's pleading; amazing. "And I won't hurt her. I promise you. I'm... I'm done forever with hurting your family."

Jimmy scrubs one hand over his face, willing himself to believe that this is really happening. When his suspension of disbelief remains as non-existent as ever, he looks back up at Castiel. The angel returns his gaze with unutterable sadness. Jimmy heaves up a sigh from somewhere deep inside himself.

"How long," he says, shifting Claire in his arms to make her more comfortable.

Castiel looks away and doesn't say anything.

That's a bad sign. "I asked you a question, Castiel."

He has to strain to hear the answer. "Six years."

"Jesus."

"I'm sorry."

"And Claire? Amelia?"

Castiel looks sick and ashamed now, and the bottom drops out of Jimmy's chest just before he utters: "Claire is... not well. At the moment she is safe and unharmed, but she is deeply troubled. And Amelia has been missing for years. We – "  _we_ being him and the Winchesters, no doubt – "we think she may be dead. I'm sorry, Jimmy. I'm so, so sorry. I never kept any of my promises to you. I let your family fall by the wayside, because I thought it was more important to tend to the world at large. I was an arrogant fool, and I... I have no excuse for my actions at all."

Jimmy's heartbeat doubles, trebles. It's only the warm weight of his little girl in his arms that keeps him anchored to some small portion of humanity, keeps him from leaping on Castiel and mauling him like a wild animal, never mind that Castiel's a fucking  _angel_  and he's the ghost of a man long dead. He wants to rip him apart – to tear and rend flesh with his nails and teeth –

"...why are you here." His voice is calm, so much calmer than he feels.

Castiel is silent. He looks as if he wished Jimmy  _was_  strong enough to end him, right here and now. "I need your help with Claire."

"No. NO. Stay away from her." Jimmy advances on him, eyes wounded and haunted. "Stay away from her, you bastard. You're not her father _. I am_."

"I know." Castiel sighs. "More than I know anything else in this life, in fact. I can't begin to atone for what I've done to her."

"Then I ask you again," Jimmy says through gritted teeth, " _why are you here_?"

Maddeningly, Castiel hesitates again. "I can't give you your life back, Jimmy. Not by traditional angelic means. I don't have the power for that anymore. But..."

Jimmy finally notices the crow's feet in Castiel's face and the bags under his eyes, like a bizarro world mirror image of himself, and he thinks he understands.

"My Grace is rotting out of me. Very soon I will be dead, and then I will be of no use to anyone. And neither will this body. Therefore, I feel that the kindest thing to do is to offer it to you."

Jimmy struggles to absorb the angel's words, stands as motionless as a statue. Not from shock that Castiel is offering him his life back, although there's plenty of that. But shock that the angel he'd housed and sheltered within his own skin, a celestial wave of power and intelligence and  _glory_ , was going to cease existing – and  _soon_.

"Why?" he asks, hating the emotion in his voice. "Why are you dying?"

Castiel smiles for the first time, and it's a sad one. "I lost my Grace, and the Grace I have now isn't mine. I stole it from another. I ripped it from my sibling's still-bleeding throat, and then killed him while he looked at me with betrayal in his eyes."

Jimmy remains at a loss. Castiel takes a few steps closer to him, and his smile as he looks at Claire seems to change by imperceptible degrees into one of true fondness.

"You know, your daughter once told me I've changed from what I was, and she was right, but... but I didn't change for the better. I'm an even worse monster now than when you met me. I have slaughtered countless innocents, unleashed Leviathan, gutted Heaven itself – " His voice, which has been losing strength with every second that ticks by, every sin recounted, is now nearly indiscernable. He coughs, and the sound is so human it punches a hole in Jimmy. "Trust me when I say that this will all be for the best."

Outside, it has begun raining. The storm beats a tattoo of foreboding on the kitchen's single window, lashes against the woefully inadequate storm sash Jimmy had installed there the week before. The gardenias seem to almost wilt beneath the assault. He vaguely recalls that it  _did_  begin to rain after he sang Claire to sleep, that unassuming spring day in 1998, but Heaven had never deemed fit to include this part of the memory.

"Can't anything be done?" he asks.

Castiel's smile grows even warmer. "Now you sound like Dean. Tell him – "

"Hang on," Jimmy interjects. "I haven't agreed to anything yet."

"Jimmy, please," Castiel returns in an irritated rumble. "My Grace is gone. I can't be saved. The least you can do now is help me give my death meaning. To let me correct at least one of my wrongs, even if it's too little and comes far too late."

"I still don't understand why you're doing this."

"I told you. For Claire. The girl has nothing. She's experienced nothing but hurt and disappointment over the last six years. At the very least, she needs her father." He folds his hands. "Six years is a very long time to be without one. I see that now, when before I couldn't possibly understand. The difference between angels and humans, our conceptions of time, our needs..." He shakes his head, like it's unfathomable.

Jimmy's own head is spinning. Christ, has it really been  _six years_? Claire's got to be sixteen by now. Old enough for her first prom, her first kiss –

He looks around the room. At the subpar flooring and the unfinished door to the bedroom and the welcome mat that hasn't even been put outside yet. At the pearl-pink crib filled with Fisher-Price toys, and the diaper pail he and Amelia had decorated with Minnie Mouse stickers.

At the sleeping infant in his arms.

 _Claire needs her father._  

Decided, Jimmy slowly lifts Claire to his face and kisses her. Tucks her, with just as much gentleness and tender reluctance, into the baby carrier on the carpet. He kneels there for too-long moments, lingering over the sight, watching her sleep.

"She isn't real, Jimmy," Castiel reminds him. "She's just a memory. Your real daughter is waiting for you."

Jimmy nods. He drops one last kiss to Claire's forehead. "I'll see you soon, baby," he tells her. And then he goes to the angel.

Castiel regards him patiently. "Do I have your consent to do this, Jimmy Novak?"

Jimmy's mind stutters and flashes back to the last time Castiel had said those words. Although somehow now the procedure is happening in reverse. His mind continues to rebel with distaste against the idea, but he finds his mouth forming the words:

"Yes, Castiel. I consent."

The angel smiles. "Good. Close your eyes."

His fingers reach out to touch Jimmy when suddenly the human stops him. "Wait – wait. What was it you wanted me to tell Dean?"

The angel pauses, thinking.

"Tell Dean... it wasn't his fault," he finally says, carefully. "That none of it was. And that no matter what, he was loved. He'll understand, I think."

There's the lightest brush of fingers on his forehead then, followed by the most deafening, awesome roar, like the death throes of every angel he'd watched die by his hand. For a single, piercing moment of clarity he remembers the love he used to have for Castiel – long before he'd given his first yes, long before everything literally went to hell, all the way back to when the angel had first spoken to him through a snowy television set – and he can feel the echoes of that love now. He takes that love and projects it outward,  _Claire Claire Claire_ , leaning on images of his daughter in order to remain intact.

He thinks it is love also that embraces him, pulls him back into his thrice-resurrected body and

and he's standing in a hallway.

An endless one at that, utterly nondescript and stretching out before him. There are identical pairs of doors facing each other on either wall. Jimmy isn't wearing a thin tee shirt and boxer shorts anymore but Castiel's suit, sans the trenchcoat.

"Castiel?" he whispers. But there isn't any answer. There isn't even a faint spark of the Grace that he felt the first time he'd been freed. His (real) heart plummets into his (equally real) stomach when he realizes that Castiel is most likely dead.

Still, there must be a reason that the angel had brought him _here_ , despite not knowing what this place is at all. Jimmy picks a direction and walks in it, stopping to try and open all the doors he passes. As he expected, they're all locked; and the few that _are_ open yield absolutely no helpful information whatsoever. At length he gives up on opening doors and just takes every new turn leading off into a separate hall that he can find, which becomes very confusing very quickly. All the while he can feel the thread of magic running through the place, invisible and vibrating with multiple resonances.

When it finally seems like there's no hope for him of ever getting out of this maze, he walks through a door that has been left propped open and sees them. Dean and Sam Winchester, looking no better or happier than the last time they'd met, trailed by a girl of maybe sixteen, a permanent expression of surliness pasted on her face... only... only that was...

"Claire?" he whispers, in what's almost a croak. Is it possible that he's mistaken? That he –

The girl turns at the sound of his voice first, followed by the two brothers. At first the look she has for him contains nothing but contempt, and his soul twists into a crumpled ball of dismay. He keeps looking, though; looking for hints of his sweet little girl in the tight braids of her hair, the defiant posture of her body, the dark-hued clothes and vaguely Satanic jewelry on her arms and neck.

She seems to be looking back at him now, searching for hints of her own. Then her eyes widen and the sneer falls away and a single tear trails down her cheek. Her mouth opens and no sound comes out.

"Cas?" Dean Winchester moves towards him, wary. Sam's right behind him. "Cas, how the hell'd you get in here?"

Jimmy ignores him. Or more accurately, isn't aware of him, as Claire finally cries out in a rush of emotion –  _"Daddy!"_  – and begins running towards him, tears causing mascara to streak down her face,  _and oh god his little Claire Bear is wearing mascara now_ , and then Jimmy knows nothing but joy and love as he wraps his arms around her, the infant from only a few minutes before all grown up, and he weeps and says her name over and over and promises that he will never, never abandon her again.

"Hey," he finally hears Dean say, and then he sees him, reaching over roughly to haul him to his feet. "Hey!"

Claire's up in an instant too, a protective rictus spread across her face, and Jimmy tries to motion her away, but she's far older in spirit than her sixteen years now and she marches up to Dean, staring him down without a trace of fear. Sam uses that moment to physically insert his impressively tall frame between them, keeping them separated.

"Claire," he says, voice gentle even as his eyes regard Dean with worry. "Claire, don't." Directing his next question to Jimmy, he says: "So, this is... Jimmy, it's really you?"

Jimmy nods, and Sam shakes his head as if he's just awoken from a dream. "But... but how? Cas told us you died a long time ago..."

"I did die. But he was able to bring me back, somehow." Jimmy wonders when Sam became the reasonable one. Then he sees the ugly red mark on Dean's arm and he doesn't wonder anymore. And then he sees Dean's  _face_ , and Dean's anguish as the tumblers in his mind fall into place and –

"If it's just you in there then where is he? What'd you do with Cas?"

Jimmy swallows, feels the retreat of a lump in his throat. "I didn't – I didn't do anything to him."

"Like  _hell_  you didn't. Cas wouldn't leave his body without a damn good reason. And right now there are rogue angels gunning for him, and fuck knows what else – "

"It's  _my_ body, not his," Jimmy gets out, and then he's slammed up against the wall, Dean glaring at him as if he had said something unforgivable.

This Dean is not the Dean he knew six years ago. Not the Dean who let him quietly slip out of a motel room in the middle of the night, and even sneaked a few bills into his wallet so he could make the long trip home. This Dean is big and bad and scary. He is like a wolf, with blazing eyes and an accusing tongue; all of his aggression coming from a place that does not originate in him (there'd been nothing natural about that mark) but pushes and pulls on certain aspects of his being, such as his loyalty and his fear of abandonment and his burning need (not desire) to  _fight, fight, fight_  –

This is how Castiel remembered Dean: a work of art, a bright burning soul, and the worst inflicter of self-torture.

"How do we even know you're Jimmy Novak? What kind of normal human just manages to wander into a supernatural-warded bunker?"

So that's where they are, then. Jimmy tries to twist out of Dean's grip but the older Winchester holds him fast. "I don't know how I got here. I only know that Castiel did it."

"How  _convenient_ ," Dean spits out, but the fear in his voice only becomes more pronounced.

"Dean," Sam cautions, but it sounds weary and perfunctory. He's still holding Claire back. "Look, I think we can agree that Jimmy is the real deal, you don't have to – "

"And where is he now, huh?" Dean continues, his face so close Jimmy can feel his harsh breaths on his skin. "Why would Cas randomly give his body back to some guy who died forever ago?"

And now Jimmy's pissed, because he wasn't just  _some guy_ , and he shoves Dean off of him with a strength that surprises even him.

"Maybe because it  _wasn't_  random, did you ever think of that?" he thunders. "Maybe because he was  _dying_ and none of his friends were doing a damn thing to help him, so he decided to right a wrong with the time he had left? For God's sake, his Grace wasn't even his!"

He doesn't know why he's going to the mat for Castiel like this, but he feels like he owes it to the angel after the sacrifice he had made for him. And maybe just because he's a vessel, and will somehow always feel some measure of loyalty to him. 

"Cas knew what he was doing when he took that Grace," Dean says, but there's less heat to his voice, less conviction, and his face is stricken. "He would have been okay. He _said_ he was going to be okay. He wouldn't have – "

" – wouldn't have died? Sorry, Dean, but I'm pretty sure that's exactly what happened. Or that it's what's _going_ to happen. He was already running on fumes when he came to see me in Heaven. Putting me back in my body would have just used up whatever battery life he had left."

"You son of a – " Dean makes a face like he wants to kill him and Jimmy isn't so sure that's not what's going to happen next, Sam or no Sam to intervene on his behalf. "You're lying."

"I don't have any reason to lie. I _don't_ ," he insists when Dean starts to scoff. "This is what Castiel wanted, Dean. Both for me, and for Claire. I... I don't know what kind of things he went through, to have reached that point... but I'm grateful to him. He died doing a good thing."

"Stop," Dean says, and the arm with the strange marking comes up to cover his eyes, like the truth is an actual thing he can see and it's an absolute horror to look upon. "Stop, I don't want to hear any more of this, just  _stop it_  – "

But Jimmy refuses. Refuses to let him do Cas the disservice of denying his actions, freely chosen.

"Dean.  _He is gone._ That was his choice, and you need to respect it."

"No. No, I can't – "

Jimmy utters his next words with every ounce of sincerity he can summon. "He said to tell you that none of it was your fault. And that you were always loved." 

And then – just like that, just like Castiel had said – Dean believes him. A terrible, broken sound escapes from his throat and he sinks to the floor, his eyes still covered. Sam moves with the grace of an acrobat to catch him, arms enfolding him, the fall of his hair covering Dean's face and neck. Dean doesn't make another sound after that but he shakes and shakes and shakes, until it seems he might actually shake apart, every part of him retreating into the vast recesses of this underground fortress. Sam holds him together, looking to Jimmy helplessly, his eyes shining wetly with grief. Jimmy can make out words like  _Cas_  and  _no_  and  _sorry_  and  _loved you_  and then Sam's soothing whispers in his brother's ear, as comforting as Jimmy's voice when he sang to Claire.

Claire's hand finds his an instant later and squeezes. He's forced, then, to acknowledge the ugly irony: that in reuniting one broken family, another family – still on the mend – had to be torn apart once more. It is horrible and unfair, the very worst kind of pain, and he isn't even on the receiving end this time. And yet there will never be a time when Jimmy asks if it was worth it. The proof is right there next to him.

Holding those thoughts in his mind like a prayer, he feels – or thinks he feels – the shadow of a presence passing over them, warm like the glow of a distant star. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it's my headcanon that Cas is literally channeling Jimmy and his memories when he gets the idea to sing "Greatest American Hero" to baby Tanya in Heaven Can't Wait.


End file.
